Inscribed Lamps from a Cult at Corinth in Late Antiquity

Abstract

Eor local Christian practices in Greece, the archaeologist's spade occal sionally brings to light evidence not recorded in any literary account. In this note, I discuss a group of finds from an excavation at Corinth that is interesting in this regard. From 1965 through 1970, a team from the University of Texas led by Professor James Wiseman undertook, on behalf of the American School of Classical Studies, excavations in the northern part of the ancient city of Corinth.l The most spectacular of the discoveries was a large underground bath complex. The excavators aptly called the complex the Fountain of the Lamps after the four thousand and more mold-made terra-cotta lamps, mostly of the later fifth and earlier sixth centuries CE, that were found in a narrow back room on the floor and in stone basins built along two of the walls.2 The strikingly large number of lamps suggested to the excavators